


running up that hill

by griffenly



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4187553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griffenly/pseuds/griffenly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke is able to transfer the pain of others into herself. She's always careful - until Bellamy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	running up that hill

It started when she was seven, and Wells had fallen when they were racing - _c’mon, Wells, you have to catch up, you have to catch me!_ He had fallen, and he was bleeding, perfect, little teardrops of blood leaking out from a place at his knee, and he was crying silently. And Clarke, little Clarke, just seven years old, had been so petrified, that she’d grabbed his arm tightly, grabbed it and willed that she could take his pain away, that she could make him stop hurting. _My fault my fault my fault._

And then she felt the pain in her own knee, then, a sharp little pinprick, and she heard Wells visibly sigh in relief. And so she held on tighter, her eyes growing wide, as Wells’ tears subsided and Clarke’s knee began to ache.

And that’s how it began.

On Earth, it was highly convenient, too - especially for the harder cases, for the ones that were slipping from life slowly and painfully, like a person clutching at the edge of a mountaintop but not quite ready to let go yet. And so she’d hold on to their hand, or their forearm, or sometimes even just touch their shoulder, and she could suck their pain right out of them. It fucking _killed_ , burning straight through her entire body, like she was gasoline ready to be torched at any moment. She was sparing in her use, usually; she was petrified of people discovering the secret, of learning of this innate _gift_ as her mother had so eloquently put it all those years ago. She only used it when there was a low supply of morphine, or if the pain was truly unbearable.And she hadn’t told the other delinquents yet (she _couldn’t_ , because... because what would they think?). She hadn’t even told Bellamy.

(She promised herself she would, day in and day out, and yet the secret died on her tongue like a dissolving tablet, slipping back down her throat and into the crevices o her heart where it lay in waiting. She _couldn’t_.)

He found out anyway, though.

There was an arrow in his chest. There was an arrow in his chest, and he was bleeding heavily, his entire shirt discolored with that rusty hue, and Clarke couldn’t fucking _breathe_. He was gritting his teeth, but he was barely saying a word - not even a snarky _hey there, princess, how’s life?_ when Miller had dragged him in, not even a salacious wink like he often did when she had to patch him up. _You have to be more careful_ , she’d told him a thousand times, and he would give her that crooked little grin and say, _I’m indestructible, didn’t you know?_

Her hands were shaking, and it was only when Miller murmured, “Clarke, you need to breathe,” that she finally focused on the situation. She stared up at Miller, at those dark, all-seeing eyes, and she heaved a sigh. Clarke nodded once.

“Don’t let Octavia in. Keep everyone else out.”

“Clarke - ”

“Miller, _please_.” Her voice caught on the last syllable, and she could feel the tears threatening to spill over. _Please, don’t let the others see this. Please, let me fix him._

Miller nodded at her, a single, begrudging nod, and slipped between the flaps of the tent. Clarke took a shaky breath, closing her eyes for a moment before leaning down and whispering. “Bellamy? Hey, Bellamy, can you hear me?” A groan. Clarke inhaled again. “It’s not going to hurt anymore in a minute, okay? I promise.”

She got to work quickly; everything needed to be cleaned and dressed before she did her _other_ work, because otherwise she would never be able to complete the job. And so she broke off the arrow, tending to the space around the room gingerly. She pulled the arrow out and stuffed a thick cloth upon the gaping wound in one swift motion, and Bellamy groaned again beneath her.

“What happened to _it’s not going to hurt_?”

“Give me a second,” she muttered, but there was a soft smile there, because at least he was _talking_ again.

She finished dressing the wound carefully, and then taking a steadying breath, she grabbed his hand. “Clarke, what are you...?” he started, but then it happened - the pain leeched out of him in thick black tendrils, curling into her own pale, fragile skin. She bit her lip and closed her eyes to fend off the wave, gripping Bellamy’s hand a bit tighter, and she heard his sigh of relief.

When Clarke opened her eyes, Bellamy was openly staring at her, his mouth slightly unhinged and a peculiar expression in his eyes. She dropped his hand immediately, taking a few calming breaths. _You’re okay. You’re okay. Don’t let him see. You’re okay._ “Clarke,” he said slowly, watching her stumble a bit as she groped for a chair, “what the _fuck_ was that?”

Clarke sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose between two fingers as the aftershocks subsided. Finally, _finally_ (after all her promises to tell him, after all those years of keeping it a secret), she murmured, “I can take away people’s pain.”

“I know,” he said with a slight grin. “You’re our medic, remember?”

“No, no, not like that.” She shook her head. “Like... like when I touch them, I can...” A pause. “I can bring it into my own body, instead. Like transference.”

Bellamy stared at her, and in his silence she observed him: the short curls matted to his forehead with sweat, the swipe of dirt just below his jaw, the scar above his right eyebrow from a fighting lesson gone wrong. But with his mouth ajar and his eyes so open and worried - _for you, for you, for you_ , her brain reminded her - he looked like a little boy again. The dirt could’ve been from playing in the grass, with Octavia; the scar from falling accidentally into his kitchen table. She could picture it, almost, the boy that could’ve been.

“Clarke,” he near-whispered, and she jolted back to the present. “That’s... that’s really dangerous. What if sometime you do it, and it’s too much? What if your body can’t take it?”

Clarke paused, and she considered it: _what would she do, if it was life or death? What would she do?_

“I would still take it,” she said firmly. “I... I’m their leader, Bellamy. I’m supposed to keep them alive.”

“And you can’t do that if you’re _dead_.”

“If they could live... it’d be worth it.” She gave him a half-smile, but it looked a bit more like a grimace. “Besides, they’d have you.” He merely grunted in response. “Bellamy,” she added, “you can’t... _tell_ anyone.”

He eyed her carefully, dark orbs searching her face, trying to pry that iron-clad mask she’d so carefully built away. But finally, he sighed, and said, “Of course, princess. Whatever the hell you want. But Clarke?”

“Hmm?”

“You have to promise never to do it for me again. Alright? No matter what, I don’t want you doing it for me again.” His voice was demanding, and his eyes were imploring, and so she sighed.

_What would she do, if it was life or death?_

_What would she do if it was Bellamy?_

_What would she do?_

“I promise, Bellamy.”

He nodded.

_What would she do?_

_Besides_ , she’d said. _They’d have you._

* * *

 

There was a war, and there was a girl forged from the stuff of constellations standing across from a woman built from the ashes her people had left behind.

There was a war, and Clarke had to say goodbye to so many. So many parents left childless, so many children unable to grow up, _far too many_ lives.

(She wondered if she could ever wash the blood from her hands.)

There was a war, and there was Bellamy, lying on the ground with a spear sliding between his ribs, probably puncturing a lung, blood pooling in his mouth. Clarke’s fingers were shaking and there were tears in her eyes, the tears of a silly little girl who had believed, once, in happy endings, in the knight and the princess finally getting together in the end.

He was dying, and she was crying, and there was a war.

“C-clarke,” he stuttered, and she shushed him. “Clarke, listen to me,” he pleaded, his voice ragged and his eyes wild, and so she ceased in her trembling ministrations, looking to him in agony, the tears blurring her vision. “I n-n-never told you, did I? That I - that I loved y-you?” he rasped, and she choked out a sob.

“You didn’t have to,” she whispered. “I always knew. And I love you, too, you know that, right?”

His smile was stained with blood, and it made her heart throb. “T-that’s g-good.”

“I’m going to make this better, Bell, I promise,” she murmured. _What would she do?_

_It’d be worth it._

_Promise me._

“I’m going to make it better.” She clenched his forearm. Bellamy shook his head, realizing immediately what she was doing, understanding the words that dangled limply between the lines.

“C-c-clarke, no,” he tried, and she shook her head.

“They’d have you, remember?”

Bellamy stared at her, and she could read the words he was unable to say: _what if I don’t want to do it without you? What if_ me _doesn’t exist without_ you _?_

_It’d be worth it._

_What would she do, if it was life or death?_

She closed her eyes.

She closed her eyes, and she thought about taking the pain away, about healing the broken pieces he wasn’t able to. She closed her eyes, and she felt his hand ghosting across her wrist. She saw his smile, crooked and _happy_ in the dying firelight. She saw his eyes, so dark and wide and concerned as he clutched her face between his palms, rubbing soothing circles on her tear-wet cheeks.

She heard those final words: _I love you_.

And when she blacked out, her hand falling from his arm and her head pillowed against the softness of the grass, her breathing unsteady, as though she was breathing in glass - as she blacked out, she thought, _it was worth it, Bell. It was worth it._

**Author's Note:**

> I AM SO, SO UNBELIEVABLY SORRY CAUSE THIS HURT LIKE A BITCH FOR ME TO WRITE SO DON'T HATE ME PLEASE


End file.
